Bang for your Burger Buck ~ Patra Burgers on Sunset

It is the last month of Summer. Your Los Angeles Dodgers have set a franchise record 15 game win streak on the road. You shall revel their return, in person, to Chavez Ravine this Friday. There will be beers. There will be pre/post game burgers. Considering a draft lager is running you $10 a pop, you are in dire need for some Bang for your Burger Buck. It is high time you met Patra Burgers on Sunset.

The menu is a sheer blitz of a la carte hand held grease grenades, mega calorie combos, and dinners that will keep you in spinning classes for the next decade. This is the grand promise of fast food in the Southland:Mexican, burgers, breakfast and an almost criminal fast food version of pastrami(that becomes embarrassingly edible thanks to French dip tactics and a couple pickled yellow peppers). But much like ordering fish at an IHOP, big menus mean multiple duds and Patra is no exception, so tread carefully.

looks can be deceiving

Patra Burgers on Sunset might come off like the Hat, the way Echo Park likes to call itself the “eastside”, but let’s get one thing straight: we aint in the SGV, we are Chavez Ravine adjacent. My gut told me that a pastrami burger may have been the find here. My gut was wrong. So skip the beef navel action at Patra and stick to your burger basics:

No surprise to see iceberg lettuce exploding out of the wrapper, along with some thousand island, pickle and tomato bringing up the rear. Thank whichever God you believe in for American cheese, because that with the aforementioned toppings save an overly charred charbroiled burger. The beef delivers in terms of texture but falls short in terms of juiciness and overall flavor.

Salvation lies in the toppings

Still I find this burger to be enjoyable and worth a repeat visit – why? Look, some things are worth a nosh in the right state of mind: drunk and coming home from a Dodger game(via the 2 bus) or perhaps drunk and on your way to the Dodger Game. Maybe you shouldn’t have had that third pitcher of PBR at the Gold Room – you get the point; food when you’re drunk is a very very good thing and $4.39 for a double cheeseburger, pre tax, payable by credit card is a check in the win column.

Signs of Echo Park’s gentrification are almost as prominent as signs of it’s OG past. Patra Burger on Sunset falls in the latter category and even if it pails in comparison to the much hyped and soon to be reviewed by yours truly, Wednesday Burger Night at The Park, you should go. Be you Echo Park resident, Dodger Stadium patron, or just a lost Silver Laker wondering how the super hipster lives, get your drunk or tragically ironic grub on with a double cheeseburger at Patra Burgers on Sunset.